Sunday, June 29, 2014

MOSCOW LAUGHS




One of my favorite pieces of musical film. Opening number of JOLLY FELLOWS or MOSCOW LAUGHS;1934, USSR. Cleverly cut to approximate a five minute continuous pan across the countryside. That the director (Grigori Aleksandrov) was inspired by... SILLY SYMPHONIES is apparent. The singer is Leonid Utyosov, one of the few Russian jazz bandleaders of the time.

1 comment:

Mark Kausler said...

Really enjoyable piece of Russian film history, Milton! I liked how how the leader of the group played bottles, jars, wooden tines in bridges, etc. with his hands and feet, just like Bosko, Mickey, Flip and other 1930s cartoon characters.
I hope this plays better in your browser than in mine, a lot of skips and sync issues. Thanks for posting it, however. Mark Kausler